My World
by Dwiddle
Summary: AU Being popular was hard, and Finn knew that. With pressure building up on him, will his younger brother show him what truely matters in life? A series of vignettes/drabbles, 3-shot
1. Chapter 1

Identity: Who people expect you to be

Popular

High school was hard. Football was hard. Being popular was hard. Everyone wanted things from me, and I don't feel like I can always live up to their expectations. Well, right now their expectations are my expectations. Grades don't really matter. They don't matter to anyone here. Just football and who you're dating.

I got out of Spanish and sighed, walking towards my locker. I had a D in that class. I don't understand why we have to learn it. I'm never going to Mexico, so what's the point? It's like my girlfriend said, there wasn't. I looked down the school's tiled hallway and saw her coming towards me. She looked like the girl any guy would want to have. Tall, blonde, skinny, a cheerleader. I was lucky to be good enough for her. I was tall, lanky with hardly any muscles, and short brown hair. I didn't look like the ideal boyfriend to any girl. But somehow I was for her.

I opened the blue locker door when she got to me. She looked mad. Angry even. Usually when this happens I zone out, not wanting to listen. It's always the same conversation, she starts yelling at me for all my flaws and points out everything that is wrong with me. Then it goes to her problems somehow. I don't get it.

"Hello? Are you even listening to me?" I snapped out of my thoughts to actually pay attention and look at her. He face was red and she was livid. Even though I'm taller than her I feel small under her pressuring gaze.

"Sorry Quinn, could you repeat it?" She smacked my arm hard and I flinched.

"If you don't get your grades up, then you're off the football team, and you won't be quarterback. That means I'll be dating a loser, and that just can't happen." I looked anywhere but her. All anyone cared about was being popular around here. If I'm not the quarterback, then I'm nobody. And she can't date a nobody. So I guess I have to care about grades now. I don't see why she cares about grades, no one does. But how did she even find out about my grades? I was going to ask her, but defying her would be suicide.

"I'm sorry, I'll try." She placed her hands on her skirt clad hips and glared at me.

"I hope so," she said quietly, threateningly, then stalked past me and down the hallway, turning the corner and going out of sight. I looked into my cluttered locker and took out my math book, closing the locker with a slam. I hated pressure, but my life was full of it. I started walking down the hall, the opposite way Quinn went when I saw my friends shove another kid, a loser, into the lockers forcefully. They'll probably expect me to help them bully some other kid later. I'll have to say yes. If I say no, I'll be a wimp. I'll be the loser.

Yeah, being popular is hard.


	2. Chapter 2

Awareness of Self: Who I should be, what really matters

For Good

"Mom, I'm home." I opened my front door and closed it with a slam. My mom always got off work before I got out of school, so I know she's home. I took of my shoes and placed them on the dirty mat by the front door, under the coat rack, and headed up the stairs.

My house wasn't anything special. It was your average two story house, with a living room on the first floor that connects to the kitchen. We had a back yard with a garden and a front yard that led to the garage, the driveway, and the front porch that led to the front door. From the front door you can turn left and go up the stairs where there are four rooms. One's the bathroom, the others are bed rooms. Everyone had their own; my mom, me, and my brother.

My brother.

Other than school and my popularity, he was the only other thing that mattered in my life. He was two years younger than me, fifteen, but he didn't look like it at all. He was tall, but not lanky like me. He had light brown hair and bright blue eyes. He always tried to find the good in people, and he doesn't have a bad bone in his body. I opened the door to his room and saw his figure asleep on the bed. I sighed and sat down on the wooden chair by his bed. All that was above the covers was his pale forehead and a tuff of hair.

"Hey, buddy. Wake up," I whispered softly as he groaned and started to stir. One of his eyes popped out from under the covers and looked at me. I saw the black and blue bags under his eyes. I tried as hard as I could to keep the smile on my face. For him.

"Hello!" The rest of his head came out from under the covers as he smiled at me. It seemed forced, but I didn't think anything of it. His skin was pale, white as a ghost. It looked almost like porcelain; one wrong touch and it would break under your fingers.

"How was school today," he asked with that same huge smile on his face.

"It was good," I lied. I tried to fake a smile but he saw right through it.

"You were bullying kids again, weren't you?" I looked down. He knew I bullied kids in school and he didn't like it. I didn't either, but I had to stay popular. "You know I don't like that. If I went to school would you bully me? Because I know if I went to school I'd be a huge target." My eyes widened.

"No, of course not!" I wouldn't. I love him more then I love my life. I wouldn't ever lay a hand on him if he went to our school.

If he could even get the energy to get out of this bed.

That's the thing. My brother, my little brother, has congestive heart failure. It has gotten so far along that he couldn't even find the energy to get out of bed or stay awake for long periods of time. It pains me to know he might not live for much longer if he doesn't get a donor heart. Every day I hope his beeper goes off to tell us he can have a new heart, but every day it never does, so every day my hopes get slimmer and slimmer.

"Well that's good. But can you promise me something?" He looked up at me.

"What?"

"Instead of bullying kids, can you stick up for them? Help them? That would make me happy." I saw his hand start to lift, slowly, and he rested it over mine. Tears welled up in my eyes.

"Yeah, sure."


	3. Chapter 3

Rite of Passage: Going away from the crowd

Defying Gravity

I never got people. Never have, never will. I never got why they did things, I never got why they believed in things.

I brushed past all the kids in the hallway, earning glares from most of them. I don't care. I don't care about anything anymore. He's gone and that's all that matters. He never did anything wrong in his whole life. In all the fifteen years he has lived.

He's gone. That's the mantra that keeps repeating itself in my mind. He's gone, he's gone, he's gone. It just wasn't fair. Why was it that people who do wrong never get punished but the people who don't do anything wrong, the kind ones, always get the short end of the stick? I've seen so many teachers in this school watch students act out horribly but don't do anything about it, considering I was one of those kids. And then my brother, who has only tried to make everyone else come before him, has to be the one to get punished. To die. All because of a stupid heart disease.

Every day I waited for that stupid beeper to go off, for the future to go off, to let us know that there was a heart for him. A life for him.

It never did. I went up to his room to say goodbye to him before I left for school a few days ago, and he looked like he always did, pale and sleeping. But when I reached him and shook his shoulder it was cold; colder than it should have been. I noticed he wasn't breathing at all. I cried, holding him, calling out for my mom to get up here.

That's when my entire world stopped. It stopped at the exact same moment I found my baby brother dead. My entire world shattered beneath my fingers. First my dad left all of us, and then my brother had to be taken too. It was too much. I never liked my father. When we were younger he would always beat us, mostly my brother for "being a weakling and needing to man up", before he went off to get drunk again. One day he left and never came back. I think that was one of the best days of my life.

But the day I found my brother, that was the worst. I'd give up anything to have him back. I'd even go and live with my dad, wherever he was, if it meant my brother could have another chance at life.

But wishes never came true, now did they? No. Fairy Tale never happen, neither do those happy movie endings. No, this is life. Real life.

I was at my locker when I saw a normal sight. Quinn was storming up to me again and I sighed. I wasn't in the mood for any of this anymore. I had no energy left.

"What are you doing," she asked me in that crude tone. "You've been avoiding me all week. You haven't attended one football practice, and all your grades are still the same! What is wrong with you?" She kept screaming in my face, but I hardly took in any of it. I wonder how he would have handled it. He probably would have calmly talked to her and settled her down.

No matter what I saw or what happens to me, it all somehow made me think back to him. All I could think about was him. How could I not? He was my life. How can a person live if their life was gone?

"Are you even listening?" I looked up at her through my eyelashes. "You acting like a kicked puppy is ruining your reputation. Our reputation. We can handle this!" Before she could get any more in I spoke up.

"God, can't you think about anything other than yourself and your stupid reputation for one second!" I couldn't handle it. She was so worried about her identity and herself than what could be happening in the real world. What really mattered. She looked at me, shocked and stunned.

"What did you just say to me?" Her voice was quiet, threatening.

"Why does everything have to be about you! You know what, I'm done with this! I'm done with you, with football, with everything that keeps me on top around here! Don't you get it? None of this matters outside of school! When you get out of here, you'll be starting fresh. They won't care that you had a huge group of followers in school!" I turned around and started walking away.

"If you take one more step away then we are through." I kept walking. I didn't care about her anyways. I turned the corner and I saw my 'friends' pushing around a kid in a wheelchair. That was the last straw. I ran up the stairs, turned around my so called friend, Puck, and punched him in the face.

"What the hell man?" All my 'friends' turned to me to see what was going on.

"Just get out of here. Don't you have anything better to do?" One last look and they all left. I turned around to see how the kid in the wheelchair was doing and helped him out. He was actually cooler than all those other guys now that I got to know him. He sure knew how to keep a conversation.

We both went to the cafeteria and sat at his table with his friends; a goth asian, a black girl, and a girl who didn't know how to dress. After talking for a bit I noticed that I was actually being myself here. I actually truly belong here, I truly felt comfortable around people. For the first time since my brother left, I smiled.

I think he would want me to do this. And I hope he can see me from wherever he was and be proud of me.

I'm fulfilling his last wish, keeping my last promise.


End file.
